Jeannette LoVetri, founder of the Contemporary Commercial Institute at Shenandoah conservatory and creator of Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method, uses an expression “Wait for the bus.” She explains it by describing a person who is standing around waiting for a city bus. This person has no particular agenda but is present in that moment, aware of the surrounding activities and ready to embark once the bus arrives. Jeannie tells SVW students that this is how they should be in a voice lesson. Set up the correct technical scenario and then simply “wait for the bus.”
“Waiting for the bus” is NOT going through the motions without regard to the final outcome. Rather, it is allowing the muscles of the vocal mechanism to have a chance to learn the behavior the teacher is asking of them. As Jeannie recently wrote on a SVW Teacher’s Support Group online forum, the teacher should always be thinking in terms of “WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE THROAT when the person is making the sound, and WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH/ABOUT that?”
In the summer of 2011, I attended the Contemporary Commercial Music Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah Conservatory of Music. This three level workshop trains voice teachers in Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method. As the name implies, this method was developed by Jeannette LoVetri after years of personal vocal study as well as many years of participating in voice science research. The training course is geared toward the teaching of commercial styles of vocal performance. It is functionally-based training which means that every concept of what the teacher will ask of the student is based on something the voice mechanism actually does rather than being based simply on resonance and breath support as many other methods are.
This blog follows my journey into Somatic Voicework™ and how I am endeavoring to incorporate the principles into my daily teaching.
It is beyond the scope of this blog to describe Somatic Voicework™ in detail. I would encourage other interested voice teachers and singers to attend one of the many certification courses that are available across the country and which can be found at The Voice Workshop site.
